When a customer places an order to purchase one or more items from an online marketplace, the order may be assigned to a fulfillment center or other like facility where the items are housed or otherwise maintained, to a fulfillment center where the items have recently arrived, or to a fulfillment center where the items are expected to arrive within a short period of time. Once the order is received at a fulfillment center, the items are retrieved from their respective locations and delivered to a distribution station, where the items are prepared for delivery to customers, e.g., by placing the items into one or more boxes or other containers with an appropriate amount or type of dunnage, and by loading the items onto a delivery vehicle (e.g., a truck) for outbound delivery to the customer. Typically, the items are loaded into one or more delivery vehicles at a loading dock or like facility associated with the distribution station.
Frequently, workers who load items onto delivery vehicles at a loading dock or like facility are subject to a number of potentially hazardous conditions. For example, although the conditions within the fulfillment centers themselves are climate-controlled to a certain degree, a loading dock is, by its very nature, exposed to the environmental conditions outside of the fulfillment center. Therefore, where the fulfillment center is located in a warm climate, e.g., the southwestern United States, temperatures experienced by workers in the loading dock may regularly exceed one hundred degrees Fahrenheit (100° F.) while loading items. Conversely, where the fulfillment center is located in a cold climate, e.g., New England, workers may seasonally encounter brutally cold temperatures and biting winds while loading items, particularly in winter months, which coincide with traditionally high volumes of sales and distributions. Moreover, a large number of injuries within the fulfillment center environment typically occur at loading docks, as workers must manually carry, lift and stack items of varying weights to different elevations within the delivery vehicle, and to ensure that the items are properly stabilized within delivery vehicle prior to their departure.
Given the extent of human interaction that is required to physically move items into a desired position at a fulfillment center, e.g., from a distribution station into a proper position aboard a delivery vehicle at a loading dock, and the occasionally adverse working conditions that may be encountered there, the loading dock is frequently the site of the highest turnover and the lowest morale and job satisfaction levels among employees within the fulfillment center environment.